Evelina, by Fanny Burney

Letter xxiv

Mr Villars to Evelina

Berry Hill, April 22.

HOW much do I rejoice that I can again address my letters to Howard Grove! My Evelina would have
grieved had she known the anxiety of my mind during her residence in the great world. My apprehensions have been
inexpressibly alarming; and your journal, at once exciting and relieving my fears, has almost wholly occupied me since
the time of your dating it from London.

Sir Clement Willoughby must be an artful designing man: I am extremely irritated at his conduct. The passion he
pretends for you has neither sincerity nor honour; the manner and the opportunities he has chosen to declare it, are
bordering upon insult.

His unworthy behaviour after the opera, convinces me, that, had not your vehemence frightened him, Queen Ann Street
would have been the last place whither he would have ordered his chariot. O, my child, how thankful am I for your
escape! I need not now, I am sure, enlarge upon your indiscretion and want of thought, in so hastily trusting yourself
with a man so little known to you, and whose gaiety and flightiness should have put you on your guard.

The nobleman you met at the Pantheon, bold and forward as you describe him to be, gives me no apprehension; a man
who appears so openly licentious, and who makes his attack with so little regard to decorum, is one who, to a mind such
as my Evelina’s, can never be seen but with the disgust which his manners ought to excite.

But Sir Clement, though he seeks occasion to give real offence, contrives to avoid all appearance of intentional
evil. He is far more dangerous, because more artful: but I am happy to observe, that he seems to have made no
impression upon your heart; and therefore a very little care and prudence may secure you from those designs which I
fear he has formed.

Lord Orville appears to be of a better order of beings. His spirited conduct to the meanly impertinent Lovel, and
his anxiety for you after the opera, prove him to be a man of sense and feeling. Doubtless he thought there was much
reason to tremble for your safety while exposed to the power of Sir Clement; and he acted with a regard to real honour,
that will always incline me to think well of him, in so immediately acquainting the Mirvan family with your situation.
Many men of this age, from a false and pretended delicacy to a friend, would have quietly pursued their own affairs,
and thought it more honourable to leave an unsuspecting young creature to the mercy of a libertine, than to risk his
displeasure by taking measures for her security.

Your evident concern at leaving London is very natural, and yet it afflicts me. I ever dreaded your being too much
pleased with a life of dissipation, which youth and vivacity render but too alluring; and I almost regret the consent
for your journey, which I had not the resolution to withhold.

Alas, my child, the artfulness of your nature, and the simplicity of your education, alike unfit you for the thorny
paths of the great and busy world. The supposed obscurity of your birth and situation, makes you liable to a thousand
disagreeable adventures. Not only my views, but my hopes for your future life, have ever centered in the country. Shall
I own to you, that, however I may differ from Captain Mirvan in other respects, yet my opinion of the town, its
manners, inhabitants, and diversions, is much upon upon a level with his own? Indeed it is the general harbour of fraud
and of folly, of duplicity and of impertinence; and I wish few things more fervently, than that you may have taken a
lasting leave of it.

Remember, however, that I only speak in regard to a public and dissipated life; in private families we may doubtless
find as much goodness, honesty, and virtue, in London as in the country.

If contented with a retired station, I still hope I shall live to see my Evelina the ornament of her neighbourhood,
and the pride and delight of her family; and giving and receiving joy from such society as may best deserve her
affection, and employing herself in such useful and innocent occupations as may secure and merit the tenderest love of
her friends, and the worthiest satisfaction of her own heart. Such are my hopes, and such have been my expectations.
Disappointment them not, my beloved child; but cheer me with a few lines, that may assure me, this one short fortnight
spent in town has not undone the work of seventeen years spent in the country.